Bailey Belser

ENG 285
McKinney
Poem Packet
Elephant Memories (form: sonnet)
The time before man had risen from dust,
Three hundred species all gentle and kind
roamed the jungles and savannas of earth,
wise man of the forest comes to the mind
Feasting on tall grass, bark, roots, and dry nuts,
Ripened fruits from the vines for the taking.
Stretching its trunk to the water it cuts,
Cool itself from the sun that is baking.
For millions of years things went just like this.
Long before Hercules, Plato, and Zeus.
Together in great herds living in bliss,
No worries of poachers snares or mans noose.
Elephant memories, the ivory theft.
African, Asian, are all that are left.

Worry (rhyme scheme)

Here is a quaint line,
Your future looks fine!
All will fall into its place!
Dont be so sure, Im not some overnight case.
But youre wise and youre smart,
an intellectual al carte!
In math I was good, and my English was great,
in class, I even won some debates.
So, heres to your future!
Find a path that will suit ya!
Easier said than is done.
My future, it feels like a ton.

The Seasons Change (Personification Poem)

A gust of wind has finally come to an end,
A spring breeze has come to cease.
No longer in slumber, mother earth has rebirthed
with birds that sing songs of dreams.
She is bathed and flourished,
while the sun smiles bright,
flowers grow bringing life to sight.
New growth waves to the sun,
Saying thank you for what he is done.
She is alive and well, but summer wants her turn.
We are warned with a message of a yellow bee,
as it flies around kissing lilies.
She comes in hot, shes here to stay
bringing us the longest of days.
Her dryness makes us sweat
But she apologizes with the coolness of night
Painting portraits of purples and blues as the sun sets
The stars begin to shine bright and the moon kisses us goodnight.
Although she wants to stay, fall comes to play.
The leaves begin to dance in the wind
Shades of yellow, red, orange,
some even green sashay around my feet,
crumbling like the bread that we eat.
Bringing us closure from warmth, she breathes slight cool air.
The last leaf has fallen as frost dresses its branches
His fingers icy touch leaves a white dust to our dismay
And it takes away our day.
He tells a silent tale as the flakes sail
Soon he angers and howls all night
He fights the urge to say, reluctant, spitting out all day.
The ground hog begs to differ, relieving us from winter.
Spring steps in, winter, its time to sleep.

What I Only Know (writers choice: free verse)

Ill keep a distance between us
because when I wake, youll be gone.
Trust me, Ive seen it before.
Her strength was admiring, but she never forgot.
His pride was crushed, and he never forgave.
I clench the reality and hold is closely to me
--because what I have seen-is all I can offer you.
My heart feels your love,
Im just afraid.
Sometimes I think too much,
I just dont know how to let me love.
So, Ill keep this distance between us
--because what I have seen
is all I can offer you.
Writers Commentary:
Writing these poems really taught me a lot about writing, and myself in
general. I used to love writing poems, and overtime, I grew a dislike
towards it, but this really helped my love grow back for it. With that in
mind, writing poems is more stressful than you think, especially if you
are trying to follow a certain type of form. I found myself struggling
most with being overly concerned with form that I felt like it was taking
away from my ability to create content. I think after I wrote the first
two poems though, I got over that and just let myself loose. Having the
temperaments as a basis to understand for writing these poems was
really nice to have. I think my connection with them varied in each
poem because each poem was about something completely different,
so some of the temperaments fit better with certain poems and some
were harder to grasp. I think that the temperament I struggled most
with would be music. I think that was mainly because I was over
thinking how to write a poem and trying to master it on the first try.
Another one I struggled with was form, not so much with a sonnet, but
with poems that dont have specific standards like a certain amount of
syllables for each line. I know that line breaks, syllables, rhyming, the

amount of words per line, etc. have a lot to do with the power and
energy of a poem and can make, or break a poem. I guess I just
struggled with figuring that whole thing about with poems that allow
more agencies with form because I havent exactly grasped how to use
form to give my writing of poems substance. Image, of course is really
the best part about writing a poem, and I think that is what I connected
with the most in most of my poems. The more realistic my poem was,
the harder time I had with creating an image, but the more narrow and
precise my poem was, the easier it was to create detail and image.
Like I said, I felt like I learned a lot about myself through this process
and really feel like the temperaments gave me a grasp of what is
important to include in a poem, which gave me a little more confidence
in my writing.
(399 words)